


Staring Right Back

by becca_letters



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M, Vignettes, part of hariboo's romcom ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 11:24:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/686423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becca_letters/pseuds/becca_letters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He literally never stops looking at her.  She’s really started to notice it, especially now that she and Jane are living at Netherfield.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Staring Right Back

**Author's Note:**

> Written for redbrunja's prompt _LBD, Lizzie/Darcy, he never stops looking at her like she's a car wreck, or the most beautiful thing he's ever seen._ at [Hariboo's super awesome romcom ficathon](http://hariboo.livejournal.com/321195.html).
> 
> Unbeta-ed so please let me know if you find any mistakes.

i. 

He literally never stops looking at her. She’s really started to notice it, especially now that she and Jane are living at Netherfield. 

She walks into the kitchen first thing in the morning craving a sugary cup of the strongest coffee. Her eyes are half open, but still she stops when she sees him sitting at the kitchen table. His laptop is open, but he stops typing the moment she walks in. He doesn’t look up from the screen right away, so she takes a moment in a half daze to study him. His hair is not as perfectly placed as it normally is, his shirt is only buttoned most of the way to his neck. He wears no tie, but the frown of malcontent is there on his face. His fingers wrap around the sides of the screen as if to pull it closed, but he seems to hesitate, thinking better of the action.

Lizzie almost sighs with relief. If he’d closed it, she’d have to talk to him. 

As it is, she knows they’re they only two awake in the house at this time. Jane is on her way to work, which means that Bing is also gone. Caroline hardly ever gets up before ten, so no chance for redemption there. 

She forces herself to mumble some kind of morning greeting to him before turning to rummage through the cabinets looking for bowls.

“Two to your left,” he says from his spot at the table. His cadence is sharp and awkward. His diction is just too good, it makes him sound even more pompous. Still, she supposes he’s trying to do her a favour, so she thanks him quickly before filling the bowl with crispy flakes and skim milk.

She thinks about taking the bowl back to her bedroom because then she can at least have her book as a buffer between them. She doesn’t though.

They sit in silence for a long time, Lizzie with her face buried in her cereal, trying to eat it as quickly as possible.

It’s only after she’s put her bowl in the dishwasher and is walking out of the room that she thinks about the lack of clicking computer keys.

ii.

Sometimes she feels like her life is a giant car crash, all twisted metal and broken glass. She is a spectator watching it happen, like some kind of inexplicable out of body experience.

Catherine de Bourgh continues to pet her nasty dog and coo, slamming Lizzie for her poor life choices over and over again. She feels raw, and more than a little sick as she’s been forced to answer so many questions over the course of this awkward dinner. She hasn’t even had a chance to try the goulash, she’s not sure that she’d like it anyway.

She can feel Darcy’s eyes on her. It’s almost a spidey-sense she has now, like the prickling at the back of her neck or the flush of warmth to her cheeks. He’s sitting across the table, speaking only when spoken to, making comments about how accomplished his sister is, cutting the Bennets down to size at every opportunity. He still can’t seem to look away from her. 

It gets to the point where Lizzie starts to wonder if maybe she has something on her face.

Luckily, just at that moment, Darcy’s friend Fitz engages her in conversation about her schooling and the prickling sensation floats to the back of her mind.

It never disappears entirely though.

 

iii.

The day he brings Bing back to the Bennet household is bittersweet. She knows exactly _what_ he did for Lydia, thinks she understands exactly what he did for Jane as well. She wonders, as he stands stoically by the door, _why_ he did it though.

She looks at him, and he’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. 

Her head fills with questions: Did he always wear his hair like that? Were his eyes always that blue? How did she never notice his hands before? His shoulders? 

She loves that he’s wearing his glasses. If she thinks back hard enough to that day, she can almost smell the sea breeze off the bay.

Her heart stammers in her chest.

Jane clears her throat and Lizzie realizes that she’s been staring. More than that, the whole time she’s been watching him he’s been careful to look anywhere but at her. 

There’s a darkness that settles in her gut at that thought. The idea that she could maybe just possibly almost probably be in love with him. Really in love. With Darcy.

And even more horrible, that maybe he can’t love her back. Or won’t. Or doesn’t.

Her face is a stuck smile, so false it burns in her cheeks.

“Will you be staying in town long?” She asks finally, unsure of whether she’s asking Bing or Darcy for an answer.

His eyes meet hers, and she watches his lips twist into the ghost of a smile. She lets out the breath she didn’t realize she was holding and never even hears Bing’s answer.

Darcy’s looking at her now, and for the first time, she admits that she’s looking back.


End file.
